


Forlorn

by tenmillionotters



Category: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Multi, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27479488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenmillionotters/pseuds/tenmillionotters
Summary: For years, he seemed to rot away in a living body. Where his heart was still beating it was longing for death all the same. Hedonistic as he was, she had taken all pleasure from him when she died.It felt as though he had lost a part of himself when she left him without closure. What would he have wanted from her?
Relationships: Isshin Ashina & Tomoe, Isshin Ashina/Sekiro | Wolf
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Forlorn

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic about Isshin reflecting on his feelings for Wolf. I’ll have to settle into writing for them so please be gentle with me ;;

It spread, it spread through his body like a disease. Like the sweet alcohol that pulsed through his veins and numbed all his needs. When she had first seen him like this, she didn’t quite understand what she was witnessing. His fascination with her was something they all shared, to a certain degree. 

Everyone loved her. 

Lady Tomoe was a force of nature, it felt like watching a storm tear out the deep roots of the trees that secured the soil on which Ashina was founded. She caused an avalanche that buried them all. Suffocating in their emotions to a varying degree.

Emma admired her. Genichiro idolised her. 

But only Isshin was buried so deep under her that he almost died. Almost. 

Like heavy summer rain, she came and went in the blink of an eye. There was an emptiness in his eyes that nothing could ever fill again. Silently, Emma watched him, wondering when and if the spark would return. 

It never did. For years, he seemed to rot away in a living body. Where his heart was still beating it was longing for death all the same. Hedonistic as he was, she had taken all pleasure from him when she died. 

It felt as though he had lost a part of himself when she left him without closure. What would he have wanted from her?

 _You can’t tie down a woman like that._ He would laugh, but there was a deep sadness in his voice. It swung in every sound he made, every word he spoke ever since she left. It was a sadness so deep, so visceral she felt it tear into her flesh. 

She could tend to his wounds. The physical ones at least, but she could never fill the emptiness that consumed him. 

What had changed? Ashina was on the brink of a war that would eradicate her, but Isshin was livelier than he had been in years. She watched him, gaze out of the windows of the castle, longingly staring off into the distance. 

He was waiting for something, _someone_ to return to him. 

“They have the same eyes, have you noticed that, Emma?” 

A wolf and a storm. What did they have in common? To Emma, both were kind. Not in action, just in her own perception of them. There was a kindness to them that she hadn’t seen in anyone else, a selflessness that would be their undoing. 

But what did Isshin see? 

Sometimes he smiled to himself, pleased. It felt as though the realisation had come gradually. He had only asked her to aid him because Kuro needed him. But he stood up to Genichiro, showed no remorse for the corpses he left in his path as he ventured further down his path towards his own destruction. 

For what? 

Devotion was a poison. But it was a poison that lingered so sweetly on his lips. He longed to taste it again but Tomoe had robbed him of it long ago. 

Wolf slowly trickled it down into his mouth, with every meeting, with every stolen glance. He seeked his guidance, his presence. Isshin wanted to guide him, he wanted to guide his hand while his blade cut deep into his flesh. 

He wanted to bleed out, stain Wolf with his love. 

Passion was a fire that slowly consumed him. 

It was only now that Emma began to understand. She had loved herself, superficially, for a little while. For a long time. Painfully. But never like he did. The look in his eyes pierced right through her chest. 

“I can’t do it again.” 

She said nothing. He began to laugh. 

“When she left I felt like I’m dying. Now that I’m dying, I want nothing more than to feel as alive as I did when she nearly struck me down.” 

There was an unspoken wish growing inside his chest. Something that she didn’t want to hear but that he wanted her to witness. She should become the heiress to all his pleasures and all of his pain. 

Death beckoned so sweetly, by the hands of his lover. His love was one sided, at least in his own mind. Joy would be the end of him if his untamed beast could love him too. 

It felt as though he had fallen in love with his own demise. A sweet, warm feeling spread through his body, even more intensively than it did back then. This time, he knew, his fascination with death would get the best of him. 

He had fallen in love with the thrill of losing everything twice by now. Death was an unstoppable, unforgiving force. It had come to him in beautiful shapes, one time in the cloak of a young woman with stormy eyes; the second time deeply buried in the eyes of a one armed wolf. 

And this time he wouldn’t be cheated out of his death. He was yearning to be bested, to find his master. To love until he would draw his last breath.


End file.
